This was the first episode to air in this series, way back on June 28, 1951-so I guess it premiered as a summer series, the way they used to do it with many, not all series. They would typically, in the 50s and 60s, film 39 episodes of a regular series that aired from September until some time around May or June-it varied depending on how many times the show was pre-empted for a special of some sort. Some series would go into about 13 weeks of reruns, others would go off the air until the following fall.
We get an intro from Amos, who despite having the lead name in the title, appears as a minor character, rarely on the screen. He tells how in New York City, there are two men named George Stevens, one a hard-working 19-year-old man, and the other-and we switch from seeing the young man at work to the one we know-Kingfish, with his feet up, sleeping. It seems the Army draft board mistakenly has just sent a draft notice to our George.
Kingfish's instincts are to avoid the service out of lack of interest-no mention is made of his advanced age nor of any physical weaknesses. The best scene is when he goes to see his quasi-attorney friend Calhoun, who not only tells him to get his wife to go to the draft board and plead for them not to take her beloved husband away, but he acts out the part, putting a scarf on like an old woman's shawl, and getting on his hands and knees pleading for the sake of George's (imaginary) young children.
But when Kingfish goes home and starts to tell her about the army, she assumes he has enlisted and tells him she's never been so proud of him, and how great it is that he's going to serve our country. So Kingfish decides to actually enlist. But it seems his reflexes don't work, and his blood pressure is so bad the doctor can't even feel it, and he winds up being medically rejected by all branches of the service.
This leads to the series ongoing theme-deception or lying by main characters to avoid getting in trouble or hurting other people's feelings. Kingfish decides to pretend he enlists, planning to hide out at the lodge for a while then come home with an honorable discharge. Of course things don't go as he planned.
I note that the main two writers are Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who teamed up to write 97 episodes of Leave It to Beaver, along with many other TV series. The style of this series is quite different-much broader comedy-than the Beaver, but there is the similarity of main characters not being truthful with their friends and relatives repeatedly.
One thing I notice in watching this DVD set is that the early-TV lighting left something to be desired. On many shots there is such a reflection of the lights on the faces of the black actors that they almost appear to be white people. I will mention that my DVD set does not go through the episodes in the order in which they originally aired, so while this is the first episode that aired, it is about the 9th one I've seen.
Overall, it's a fairly funny series. The regular cast is all black and only a couple of the characters are portrayed as being lazy or not too bright. Hey, what TV series before 1972 that featured several adult regulars didn't portray at least one as being somewhat dumb-think Ensign Charlie Parker, Gomer Pyle, Sgt. Carter from Hogan's Heroes, Maxwell Smart, to name a few. Mostly, they seem like ordinary Americans, or at least ordinary television series characters in the 1950s. Repeatedly, the characters encounter educated, professional black people who speak and behave as such.
I like the fact that they were seen as ordinary people who happened to be black. The show was a comedy, so it didn't deal with the troubles encountered by blacks in that era, nor did they spend time talking about times they were mistreated. That just wouldn't make for good comedy. At a time when most Americans who lived in small towns could go months without ever seeing a black man or woman in person, this show gave them an opportunity to see them as people just like themselves.
Even though Kingfish and his wife, Sapphire, argue, they are definitely shown as loving each other. Andy is the co-star and he does all sorts of things for his friends. Overall, he is a very funny character. He's not well educated, and he mispronounces words much like Slip of the Bowery Boys did. Like Kingfish, he doesn't seem to have a job, which makes him a good friend because he's always available to help out a friend in need.
I know the critics hated that two of the main characters didn't seem to have a job ever, spoke English with numerous grammatical mistakes, and thus the critics generalize about what a terrible show this was. So it got cancelled and it took almost 20 years before any TV sitcoms regularly portrayed black characters again, except a one man in a group of whites-gee what an advancement that was, eh?
This first episode rates an 8 from me. I need to see more before I can score the series-I have only seen one of five discs, plus one episode of a second disc. So far, it seems far better than a lot of shows I watched, or tried to watch either as a kid, or later. The goal is laughter, and these likeable, honest, characters are funny.
We get an intro from Amos, who despite having the lead name in the title, appears as a minor character, rarely on the screen. He tells how in New York City, there are two men named George Stevens, one a hard-working 19-year-old man, and the other-and we switch from seeing the young man at work to the one we know-Kingfish, with his feet up, sleeping. It seems the Army draft board mistakenly has just sent a draft notice to our George.
Kingfish's instincts are to avoid the service out of lack of interest-no mention is made of his advanced age nor of any physical weaknesses. The best scene is when he goes to see his quasi-attorney friend Calhoun, who not only tells him to get his wife to go to the draft board and plead for them not to take her beloved husband away, but he acts out the part, putting a scarf on like an old woman's shawl, and getting on his hands and knees pleading for the sake of George's (imaginary) young children.
But when Kingfish goes home and starts to tell her about the army, she assumes he has enlisted and tells him she's never been so proud of him, and how great it is that he's going to serve our country. So Kingfish decides to actually enlist. But it seems his reflexes don't work, and his blood pressure is so bad the doctor can't even feel it, and he winds up being medically rejected by all branches of the service.
This leads to the series ongoing theme-deception or lying by main characters to avoid getting in trouble or hurting other people's feelings. Kingfish decides to pretend he enlists, planning to hide out at the lodge for a while then come home with an honorable discharge. Of course things don't go as he planned.
I note that the main two writers are Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who teamed up to write 97 episodes of Leave It to Beaver, along with many other TV series. The style of this series is quite different-much broader comedy-than the Beaver, but there is the similarity of main characters not being truthful with their friends and relatives repeatedly.
One thing I notice in watching this DVD set is that the early-TV lighting left something to be desired. On many shots there is such a reflection of the lights on the faces of the black actors that they almost appear to be white people. I will mention that my DVD set does not go through the episodes in the order in which they originally aired, so while this is the first episode that aired, it is about the 9th one I've seen.
Overall, it's a fairly funny series. The regular cast is all black and only a couple of the characters are portrayed as being lazy or not too bright. Hey, what TV series before 1972 that featured several adult regulars didn't portray at least one as being somewhat dumb-think Ensign Charlie Parker, Gomer Pyle, Sgt. Carter from Hogan's Heroes, Maxwell Smart, to name a few. Mostly, they seem like ordinary Americans, or at least ordinary television series characters in the 1950s. Repeatedly, the characters encounter educated, professional black people who speak and behave as such.
I like the fact that they were seen as ordinary people who happened to be black. The show was a comedy, so it didn't deal with the troubles encountered by blacks in that era, nor did they spend time talking about times they were mistreated. That just wouldn't make for good comedy. At a time when most Americans who lived in small towns could go months without ever seeing a black man or woman in person, this show gave them an opportunity to see them as people just like themselves.
Even though Kingfish and his wife, Sapphire, argue, they are definitely shown as loving each other. Andy is the co-star and he does all sorts of things for his friends. Overall, he is a very funny character. He's not well educated, and he mispronounces words much like Slip of the Bowery Boys did. Like Kingfish, he doesn't seem to have a job, which makes him a good friend because he's always available to help out a friend in need.
I know the critics hated that two of the main characters didn't seem to have a job ever, spoke English with numerous grammatical mistakes, and thus the critics generalize about what a terrible show this was. So it got cancelled and it took almost 20 years before any TV sitcoms regularly portrayed black characters again, except a one man in a group of whites-gee what an advancement that was, eh?
This first episode rates an 8 from me. I need to see more before I can score the series-I have only seen one of five discs, plus one episode of a second disc. So far, it seems far better than a lot of shows I watched, or tried to watch either as a kid, or later. The goal is laughter, and these likeable, honest, characters are funny.
